Love Thy Neighbor

There was a huge storm that hit GeedingManor back in May that blew down my fence.  I decided not to do anything about the fence for a while just to see if any future storm would blow down any remaining parts – which never happened.  Since the rest of the fence was in pretty miserable condition, WifeGeeding and I decided it was time to get a new fense.

We soon found out that fences are expensive.  After getting several quotes on what it would cost to have someone come out, tear down the old fence, and build a new one – I decided that I would make it a do-it-yourself project and save about a grand in the process.  When I told one of my closest friends this, he thought it might be fun to lend a helping hand for a couple hours on Saturday in helping me remove the fence post and tearing down the rest of the standing fense.

There’s about 20 total fence posts, and I decided to get started before Saturday to get a head start just to see what I was getting myself into.  I wanted this to be one of those projects that I was going to tackle a little bit at a time and something I didn’t want to put a lot of pressure on myself.  So I was thinking when it came to just tearing down the fence and pulling up all the posts, that should take me about 4 weeks just working on it a little at a time. 

I soon found out that a lot of those wooden fense posts were rotten at the botton, and it required a lot if digging and chain pulling to remove the cement that was connected to those posts which were about two and a half feet in the ground.  I think I managed to pull about four of those concrete bases in about three hours.

Saturday soon came and SisterGeeding’s boyfriend thought he would lend me a hand to get on my good side.  I was totally willing to take advantage of this opportunity and his youth, and was hoping he had one of those attitudes in which he wanted to prove how manly and strong he was.  In about four hours, we got another 6 finished.  There were about 10-12 more to go. . . . whew.

On Sunday I started to work on them again, and SisterGeeding’s boyfriend once again joined in on the fun.  But then one of my neighbors saw us working, and he came over to help.  He lended us some chain and a hi-jack that really helped speed up the process.  I told him I appreciated the help and I didn’t want to ruin his Sunday afternoon pulling up fense posts, but he insisted on helping out until the job was done.

After about 20 minutes another neighbor drove by and started some chit-chat with us.  He ended the conversation with “I’ll be down in five minutes to help you guys out.”  Sure enough, he was down in less than five minutes and stayed until the job was done.

During this whole time all I could think about was two things.  Love thy neighbor and the concept of grace.  Here were two neighbors that unselfishly spent their Sunday afternoon on a nice humid Texas summer day to help a neighbor almost half their age.  They didn’t even know each other until today, and it turns out they are both in the aircraft industry and have many of the same friends.  When I think of grace, I think of undeserving mercy.  I certainly didn’t deserve their grace, but I was certainly appreciative . 

What I thought was going to take me about four weeks in tearing down the fence and pulling up the concrete bases was all accomplished by 3:30 p.m today.  Love thy neighbor and grace . . . what great concepts to live by.

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4 Responses to Love Thy Neighbor

  1. MToots says:

    What a beautiful way to see a Sunday School lesson in ACTION!
    You have some wonderful friends and neighbors who know how to walk the walk, not just talk the talk!

  2. littlepastor says:

    Whatcha gonna do the next time you see one of these neighbors working on a big project out in their yard?

    Your bound to help for the rest of eternity! 🙂

  3. nathan says:

    right on!

  4. Darren says:

    Hey, I’m moving into a new house on the 29th here in Kansas
    City. Just want to invite you up to be neighborly…ahem..bring your
    pliers.

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